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It's dance 

In China, there is a long history, unique style, and well-known dance which is long-sleeve dance. Long Sleeves dance is an important part of body charm teaching and stage performance. Long sleeves dance comes from the traditional Pekin Opera dance “Shuixiu” . Wrist, elbow and shoulder are coordination and unity, which is the key to a good sleeves dance.

As early as the Han and Tang dynasties, long-sleeve were in vogue for a time. According to legend, the origin of the Han Dynasty, the prevalence of the Tang Dynasty, the loss of order in the song and Yuan Dynasties. Long-sleeve pay attention to the body rhyme and the technique charm is very important.

The Han dynasty brick image of the sleeve dance, is more colorful. Flying long-sleeve, long-sleeve drape whisk or roll up long-sleeve which are ever-changing and beautiful. The Tang dynasty and colorful dance murals and figurines, are dressed in long-sleeve dance clothes.

After the Han and Tang dynasties, the description of the sleeves of the text, history books, unearthed in various generations of the image of the sleeves, but also emerge in endlessly. Up to now, in the traditional opera dance and the folk dance, also has preserved the very rich and the rich expression dance sleeve technique.

Let’s have a glance into the innovation of long sleeves dance. The last paragraph of the dance drama “Tsing Yi” , Xiao yanqiu’s sleeve dance, is a very special treatment.

At the creative level, it combines some of the techniques of the Dance of China with some of the innovative techniques. Some use in space, such as the relationship between the long sleeves and the body.

The long sleeves can extend the dancer’s body in the space, thus occupying the space, to the greater extent of catharsis or emotional expression.

Long-sleeve dance perfectly conforms to the Chinese traditional esthetic. Typically, it has reflected the Chinese dance unique charm cultural connotation. This unique sense of beauty gives long history to long sleeves in China.

Wisps of bright streamers fluttering with the wind
Stunning the world's eyes
Each action is like the picture on the Mogao Grottoes
Graceful and mysterious

As one of the four major classical dance of China, the Dunhuang dance has a history of less than 40 years.

The Dunhuang dance remained dormant for thousands of years until the 1970s, when it was discovered and created by the top authorities in Dunhuang Studies, such as Chang Shuhong, Duan Wenjie, Shi Weixiang. The choreographers and directors of the Gansu Song Sance Troupe have created a dance drama, “Tales of Silk Road” which was a huge success in 1979.

Mogao Caves, located in the Gansu region, is a world-renowned art treasure house with valuable artistic and cultural values. While Mogao Caves is best known for its diverse and graceful dance images, it fully demonstrates to the modern people as well as the whole world the Chinese ancient people’s artistic thought and the cultural accomplishment.

Over Mogao Caves of development, the 492 surviving Buddhist caves depict various dance images. For example, the famous “heavenly palace music and dance picture” reflects the image of the gods of music and dance in the imagination of the ancients.

Most of the dancers are carrying musical instruments, especially the movement of “playing Pipa” dance, which is very classic in Dunhuang Dance. It represents the outstanding characteristics of the combination of music and dance in Dunhuang dance.

The movement of “playing Pipa” once was sealed in the Mogao Grottoes 112 Cave Dance Posture, by different people in different time interpretation. It is a very wonderful thing.

I think of it as a legacy. Culture has passed through the baptism of time, passed down the most dazzling luster.

In 2008, the director of Olympic opening ceremony used the flying arts and silk dance from the Dunhuang dance. The flying display at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games is particularly eye-catching. These flying not only beautiful and gentle, but also elegant.

Flying is an important element of Chinese Buddhist culture, a common positive role in Buddhist scriptures, and a common theme in Chinese Buddhist Murals, sculptures, novels and poems.

Where do you dance? 
The lonely figure in the moon
The feather falling from the clouds.

Yang Liping is a very famous folk-dance dancer in China. she is always very bold in her artistic creation. Her bold use in pursuing the sharpness and integrity of her art was admirable.

She not only changed people’s sensory experience of folk dance, but also presented a creative artistic carrier with Chinese national characteristics to the world.

“Dynamic Yunnan”, a master piece, is the result of a lot of work by Yang Liping. She spent more than a year traveling all over the mountains and rivers of Yunnan, just to collect primitive elements of folk dance and to find spiritual folk dancers.

She also spent a year and a half editing and directing the play. Three years later, in 2004, “Dynamic Yunnan” which is a great work of folk dance was unveiled to the world. Later, this work appeared on the stage all over the world, moving the audience again and again, giving the audience a sense of wonder and artistic enjoyment.

“Dynamic Yunnan” shows the primitive, rough and colorful life of more than 10 minors including normal nature of man, Tibet, Kawa and Hani. I like the unrestrained body movement, the abstract picture constitution, the ethereal melodious music, the clear and penetrating folk song. All of these elements expressed the nature of human incisively and vividly.

The peacock are called the sun bird by Dai people. The peacock is the totem they worship. Yang Liping created a series of dance language in the form of peacocks, and the spirit of the peacock expresses her longing for a holy and tranquil world.

At the last act of “Dynamic Yunan”, Yang Liping organically choreographs her solo and group dances together, combining a novel choreography with sound, light, and effect, so that the whole dance is filled with a tranquil spiritual and harmonious meaning of life.

I lived for art
I lived for love
I never did harm to a living soul

The nightingale and the rose story.

The nightingale’ lover wants to get the most beautiful rose. However, the arrogant rose says to the nightingale that I can be picked by you, as long as you feed me with blood.

The nightingale put the rose in heart. In the meantime, the rose bloomed bright with blood and the nightingale trembled to offer her love, but never sing again.

In the Aria accompanied by the opera (Vissi d’arte vissi d’amore by Giacomo Puccini) , Liu Jia (The dancer) has already turned into a nightingale, cutting through the silence of the night.

The rose was held between the heads of his eyebrows. Leading the audiences walk across the gap between drama and dance into a dramatic world.

Whether it is from the fingertips to the soul of the tenacity and flexibility, as well as the posture of the beautiful curve and aesthetic sense of art. His movements are full of foundation and talent collision intertwined.

Liu Jia is a genius dancer in China. He does not stick to a kind of dance and not limited to a style. He renews everybody to recognize what is dance.

Like he said on his Weibo (it’s a social media platform in China) that “the Nightingale” was inspired by the fairy tale of “The Nightingale and the rose” written by Oscar Wilde. It’s a brilliant work which symbolizes the pursuit of true, faithful and beautiful! 

There was a clever choreography that the rose was white at first but turned to red in the end. After the rose sticking in the nightingale’s heart, it bloomed with the nightingale’s blood, just like in Oscar Wilde’s fairy tale!

There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes.

It doesn’t matter what the audience feels when they watch the dance. It doesn’t matter whether the dance is about art, love, or passion. A good work that brings such a strong aesthetic experience to the audiences is worthy of respect.

When the ballet meets Chinese traditional stories
Magic will happen

I have watched “Dance Smash” about 11 episodes. These talented dancers have contributed dozens of classic pieces to our repertoire, but to pick one of my favorite dancer, my answer is Wang Zhanfeng and Ao Dingwen who are ballet dancers. 

Dancing “Jiu Er” is performed by these two ballet dancers who are the principal dancers of the Liaoning Ballet Troupe. Most people’s impression of ballet, mostly “Swan Lake” like grace, the circle of domestic ballet can be said to know nothing. 

But it is this pure national flavor and chinoiserie completely renews my knowledge of Ballet. Using ballet to explain a rustic Chinese love story is a risky and bold innovation and experimentation.

For more than a minute, I wanted to cry. Their dance moves were not only difficult, but also story-telling. From the beginning of the hand close-up to the final close-up, is from the sweet love to life and death after the separation of grief, really make people weep.

The last hug is in fact a hug twice. Personal understanding of the first time is the woman character before dying and hugging with the man character. The second time is woman character’s soul and her love embrace.

They did not only just try using ballet to represent Chinese story for once and also did experiment of combining Chinese dancing and ballet.

When I watched “waiting” which is a dancing performed by them as well, I can just said a single word : beautiful!

This is the feeling after watching this video so many times, tapping into the soul of the aesthetic.

Originally, I thought that Chinese folk dance had the greatest communication with Chinese people. After all, it originated from China. Many friends around me also practiced it as children. We could vaguely feel the stories conveyed.

I did not expect that ballet could also interpret traditional culture in the context of Chinese style, and so excellent and perfect.

It is not easy ah!

Ballet is kind of dance from foreign, and plenty of ballet works are foreign. It is difficult to understand the meaning of the dance expression, similar to the quintessence of Peking Opera, from foreign audience’s view.

How ballet come to be popular and How to promote ballet in China?

These two dancers gave the perfect answer: ballet skills with Chinese story and style.

This may be a spring of ballet in China.

If we can fly
I wanna be a bird on the sky

Recently, I started to watch a TV show of dance competition called “Dance Smash”. After watching all the competitions, I really feel that Hu, the champion, is well-deserved.

He is really not just a dancer. In addition to his extremely strong dancing skills, he can choreograph, will notice the difference between the way the dance is presented on television and the way it is presented on stage.

“Meet Destiny” is a fabulous dancing and also is the top 1 in my mind. As if the song “big fish” which represents Chinese traditional elements transfer to a dance image, then it should be this dance.

There is no gorgeous clothes and makeup, just like Kun in Big Fish & Chinese Flowering Crabapple, the minimalist attire, so that all attention is focused on the body expression directly and purely.

At the beginning of the singing, Hu’s tossing and turning, like a bird trapped in the sea, seemingly gentle and calm but full of struggle.

This kind of strength has been accumulating until that beam of light hit down, along with singer’s singing to the sky, Hu’s body shape swimming in the quicksand is the Peng upstream, the flying sand at the moment of the storm is his wings, at that moment, he was already deified.

There are no words to describe how shocked I was. The retrograde figure in the sand was flexible and powerful, and the walk the line was humble.

Hu said he was baptized in the TV show, but I felt that his dancing had baptized me. I think beautiful things will be found sooner or later. There will be more people who will see and understand how beautiful dancing is.

She was dressed in a shade of red
The flame of life

This is the best dance drama I have never seen before because the main female character acted by a man but so beautiful and elegant. The meaning of his action is even better than a women to explain this character.

Consort Yu (the main female character) came to the stage naked. Consort Yu stepped into a light and danced his body like water, undulating and stretching. The stage, with only Consort Yu in the light and Consort Yu out of it, was full of darkness, as if it were a pre earthly vision, with no name, no gender, no identity, only a body.

This person, with infinite possibilities, becomes anyone, until the clothes of destiny unfold behind her, and she instinctively steps into the clothes that define her identity and begins the journey of life.

Such a brilliant idea!

Lifting to the highest point of the leg, one after another into the red coat, waist buckle, belongs to Consort Yu’s singing: “since I with the King of the East and West, by the wind and frost and toil year after year… ” singing, Consort Yu makeup properly, still looking at herself with a little bit of Bemusement, she was defined as “a beautiful woman” .

With these words, the Consort Yu of the world was born. In the opening of the curtain, red makeup Consort Yu gradually dance female soft beauty, with a variety of rhythm of the music to feel the female body, show femininity. As the music died down, Consort Yu knelt quietly, holding out an arm and waiting softly for her overlord to come. Consort Yu, at this point, really has a body and a soul.

In this dance drama, the body is just a carrier, the body of entanglement in the discharge of love fireworks, dazzling and start a prairie fire, lit up the dark night, see the “milky way”.

As Hu Shenyuan (Consort Yu’s actor) said, “Consort Yu” with a strong will for love crazy, with a touch of red burning the world of beauty.

A dance drama based on a true story in China.

This is the Shanghai Song and Dance Troupe’s innovative exploration of the first “spy war dance drama” in China.

With the body language of the dance art and the modern temperament of the stage space, the troupe has given the dance drama “The Eternal Wave” a brand-new artistic presentation.

“The Eternal Wave” presents such a group of religious figures in the past through a dance drama, is “the blooming of human nature, the blooming of difficulties, the blooming of ideals. “.

“The Eternal Wave” uses the dance drama’s unique performance form, to present the old Shanghai City characteristic, old newspaper Office and Qipao tailor shop minutely on the stage.

The familiar melody of “Yuguang Qu” , the life scenes of 72 tenants, the “national flag”-like clothes-drying pole in the lane, and all kinds of details have created a real and rich style of old Shanghai.

The dark and depressing atmosphere on the stage corresponds to Shanghai on the eve of liberation. The spy Li Bai and pretending to be his wife, He lanfen side by side, came to this frontline.

Working on a secret radio station, Li Bai and He Lanfen, a yarn factory worker posing as his wife, set up a communication bridge to Yan ‘an in Shanghai by telegraph. Meanwhile, the radio was found by the Japanese, Li Xia was arrested, but strictly abide by party secrets, finally released.

After the Japanese surrender, Li Xia and his wife remain in Shanghai “front line” , engaged in underground work. In the case of knowing exposure, in order to send an important telegram, Li Xia chose to let his wife and children transfer, leaving his message, was finally arrested sacrifice.

Unlike a play or musical, a dance drama has no lines and is told through music and body language. In the limited stage, with dance and music, the two relatively single art form to tell a clear story.

At the beginning, the nine main characters come out in a row with different looks and experiences, and are given distinct emotions and positions, giving the audience a general impression.

Followed by a group dance with great stage presence. Group dance in the dance drama plays a major role in rendering the atmosphere and show the story background. To create a big-time visual effect. Group dance and single dance and follow-up between the continuity of the smooth, one-off.

I’m Jiaxin Li.

I ‘m a postgraduate student at UCL now. Before I came to London I have learnt Chinese dance for 20 years and also had professional dancer experience in my life.

If you ask me why I started dancing? I can’t answer you specifically because I started dancing when I was 3-years-old.

🙂 Yep…In that age，I knew nothing about dancing but that was an impressive memory and inspiration for me when my mom sent me to a local art troupe learning Chinese dance.

After I started to learn Chinese dancing for 20 years I realized that art is really important in our daily life and also gives us energy, creativity and aesthetic ability. Basically, I have rarely seen that people knowing a lot about Chinese dance in western countries and the culture and convention behind it. So this is the main reason why I am going to introduce some master pieces here.

So in my blog I will introduce more gorgeous, culture representational and imaginative dance clips for my readers.

Shall we start?

Let’s dance!